


Rule One

by slyferris (Ethsei)



Category: DBSK | Tohoshinki | TVfXQ | TVXQ, JYJ (Band), Super Junior
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Rock Band, Angst, Anxiety, Depression, Drug Addiction, Drugs, Fluff, Homelessness, M/M, Past Rape/Non-con, Rock Stars, dancer yunho, singer changmin
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-15
Updated: 2015-03-16
Packaged: 2018-03-17 23:06:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3547154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ethsei/pseuds/slyferris
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Changmin is a severely depressed rock star with a drug habit who certainly doesn't need help. Yunho’s a dance student at a prestigious academy who just wants to lend his hand.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote a different version of this story on my homin collection fics, but I wanted to turn it into something longer and with a new plot, so. :>

His parents think they’re proud of him. His sisters think he’s a mess. His fans think he’s unattainably perfect. The tabloids think he’s worth a lot of money.

But none of it means all that much when he’s bending over a table and holding a finger to one nostril, breathing hard through a hundred dollar bill.

Changmin clicks his cigarette and blows out the smoke in one smooth motion, tongue licking the back of his teeth.

“So? Can you hook me up or not?” He keeps his voice low and steady—he knows he tends to have a blunt way of speaking that puts people off.

“Changmin. You just got out of rehab,” Jaejoong, his friend, argues without any heat in it.

Jaejoong is rich and had connections his father had forged for him. He’s the one that introduced Changmin to the drugs and the partying in the first place though, evidently, he of the two came out much worse for wear. When Changmin was fifteen and Jaejoong in his late teens, they shared their first blunt. They were invited to a business party where their fathers and their rich money grubbing friends rubbed elbows and made polite small talk and fake laughter over flutes of two hundred dollar champagne. Changmin couldn’t stop bitching to Jaejoong the whole time, ‘my father this, this asshole that’, and eventually Jaejoong snapped and had enough, pulling the boy up by his elbow. Changmin’s father’s estate was far bigger than it had any reason to be, and they tucked themselves away by the pond, shrouded by thick trees and long grass.

Jaejoong took a clumsily rolled joint for his jacket pocket and lit it up, taking a hit before offering it to Changmin. Changmin stared at it—he’d been smoking cigarettes for two months already, but this was new territory and he wasn’t sure how to feel about it. In the end, he quieted his racing mind and sucked the smoke in. His throat and lungs stung from the burnt taste and he hacked it all up.

“Jesus,” he coughed. “The hell is this?”

Jaejoong laughed and took the joint back between his fingers, taking a long hit, holding his breath and then letting go. “It might possibly be the only thing that’ll make you shut the fuck up for a few good minutes, huh. There’s no way I’m sneaking you a bottle during a _business_ party.”

He could see why. Changmin was a lousy drunk, causing a ruckus where ever he stepped after it passed his lips. He was fun to be around if you were into that kind of thing, but more often than not he just ended up causing trouble. He’d had enough fun in’s with the police to last him a lifetime at fifteen already.

Changmin exhales sharply, breaking the memory. “I’m not asking for coke. Just a pound of weed and I’ll settle back for a month. Promise.”

“Changmin look, you nearly _died_. You really expect me to hook you up when you bailed from rehab two weeks into the course when _I_ was the one holding you up while the ambulance came? Your dad will probably fire me from the firm if he hears I’m supplying to you.” Typical Jaejoong, always caring about himself more than anyone else.  

“So he won’t hear. You’d rather I go hook up on some shitty drugs in a back alley ‘cause you won’t cough up? Wanna see me passed out in an alley, Jaejoong? Maybe I’ll end up of on the front page of the tabloids again. It’d make a pretty sight for the press .” Changmin knows he’s manipulative. He knows what he’s good at, and its pressing people’s buttons. Jaejoong had always been unofficially in charge of Changmin, which he always found funny seeing as he was the one to hook Changmin up in the first place.

“Stop being such a child,” Jaejoong snaps. “Our stocks are already lowering because of _you._ ”

“It’s just weed. Pull the stick from your ass because I’ll be at yours in twenty.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

28/09/2013 – 105,076 hits

_**SHIM CHANGMIN THREATENS REPORTER** _

The infamous Shim Changmin strikes again! The twenty-five year old, on a flight home from his latest tour in Japan ( _see more_ _)_ landed in Incheon airport in the early hours of the morning. Despite the early hour, reporters and fans alike stood at the ready and swarmed the solo star when he arrived at _4:15 a.m._

“Everyone rushed at him as soon as he came out,” one young female witness reports. “You could tell he (Changmin) was angry. I was next the reporter who was taking pictures with the flash on and he started asking Changmin-oppa about his DUI charges ( _read more_ about the recent accident). The flash must’ve startled him when he got close because he grabbed the reporter’s camera and started yelling.”

A second witness confirms that Changmin threatened the reporter. “He was yelling and getting all in that dude’s face, then he said he was going to break his camera and hit him. His security team jumped on him and dragged him out before anything could happen.”

Just when we thought things couldn’t have gotten worse for the young star with the recent list of scandals piling up.

We wonder when, or _if_ the popular star will get back on track.

 

_[+72, -12] Fix your attitude… it’s embarrassing…_

_[+87, -94] it’s not right that he did this but I can’t help feel a bit sorry for him. Imagine having people shove cameras in your face every single day :\_

_[+105, -8] so when’s his court date hmm…? Just because he’s a celebrity he won’t get in trouble for drink driving? money can take you a long way_

_[+212, -81] someone please deport him LOL_

 

Yunho lowers the magazine and shakes his head ruefully. He scrapes his dark brown fringe behind his right ear and jabs his finger at the face of the singer. “This guy is out of control.”

His ginger haired roommate levels him with a look over the dining table, spoon filled with cereal halfway to his mouth. “And I care, why?”

Yunho charitably ignores him and keeps on rambling. “I mean sure, I get it, he’s having a hard time with the whole lawsuit and his band breaking up. But it’s been _two years_ and he still hasn’t gotten his shit together. The first assault charge, I understood. The first few run ins with the police, I understood, but this is just ridiculous now. I have no sympathy, _no sympathy_ for people who don’t even try to move on.”

His roommate chews on his cereal and stares at Yunho with droopy, glazed eyes, used to Yunho’s morning newspaper rants. Yesterday was the oil crisis. The day before, the failing economy.

Yunho snaps his fingers in front of his friends face. “Focus, Heechul. _This_ is the face of, arguably, the most popular idol among teenagers and young adults. What does that say about our role models in the media right now? These kids shouldn’t be looking up to this… this _train wreck_ ,” he rants, pushing the spread up in Heechul’s space, almost knocking his bowl of cereal into his lap.

Heechul’s scowls at the younger man’s insistence, and he trails his eyes down a picture of the blonde singer taken at the airport. Heechul has seen his face plastered almost everywhere around town, but he still gets a shock when he notices how pretty the idol really is. His shirts scooped low, his collarbones jutting. He’s thick lipped with high cheekbones that his skin stretches over. What makes him so fascinating to look at though are his eyes. They’re cold, flat, and look like he doesn’t carry an inch of remorse on his back.

“He’s hot though.”

“ _Heechul!_ This is a serious issue! _”_

The older rolls his eyes because at seven in the morning, _everything_ is a serious issue where Yunho is concerned. “What can I say? I have a thing for pretty boys who look like they’ve just stepped out of a coffin.”

Yunho narrows his cat-like eyes. “You would. What was the most recent one’s name again? That Chinese dancer with the shitty haircut? I swear you go through them as fast as you do your cigarettes.”

Heechul flicks a cheerio at Yunho’s forehead, eliciting a yelp and much grumbling from the brunette. “Quiet from you on my love life. What’s the deal, anyway? You work with grumpy teachers and past celebrities with bitchy personalities almost every day, but every time you so much take a _glimpse_ at this Shim Changmin dude you blow up and start a self-righteous rant.”

Yunho sighs and flicks his eyes up to the ceiling. “Yes, but there’s a difference between bitchy celebrities and celebrities who endanger other people’s lives because they can’t control their drinking.” With an irritated twitch of his eye, he tacks on, “and I am not self-righteous.”

“God, stop caring so much. Why do you hate him so much?”

“God, at least _try_ to pretend you care sometimes, Heechul. And I don’t hate him, I just don’t understand him. I don't get how he could do this to his family and friends.”

It’s a wonder they’re friends, Yunho thinks, because putting them together is like throwing oil into a flame. Heechul doesn’t give a shit about _anything,_ and Yunho cares about everything. They’re an interesting combo, but somehow they work. They’ve been best friends since their second year of high school. They hated each other’s guts for a good half a year before Yunho accidentally tripped Heechul and they yelled at each other so much that they somehow became friends. The rest is history.

Yunho tends to work well with people who differ from him as much as possible, a trait that lead to interesting stories and turbulent relationships.

It’s good for party stories, but bad in pretty much every other aspect of his life.

Yunho likes to think of it as a learning curve.

Yunho looks at his watch and sighs. “Well I have to go. We’re having a surprise guest speaker at the school today, so.”

Heechul just grunts and doesn’t look up from his cereal.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Changmin wakes up with a headache that splits right through his skull. He cracks open his crusty eyes, the room coming to focus blink after blink. He doesn’t recognise the house, and it’s bathed in darkness despite the gaps in the blood red curtains telling him it was well into the morning. More likely the afternoon, knowing he only passed out at around five last night. He sits up and finds himself on the floor, his hand hitting a bottle of liquor when he tries to find purchase and keep himself steady. He rocks forward and places his head in his hands, groaning.

He’d gone to Jaejoong’s and they’d smoked up only, just like he’d promised, but then Jaejoong started doing lines right in front of him, and god it’d been weeks since he had hit up, and when Jaejoong was too inebriated too care, Changmin snorted two lines, the drug pulsing through his body. It made him feel alive for the first time since he’d overdosed.

The whole night was a blurry mix of girls and guys bodies up against his, smoke on his tongue, and Jaejoong giving him a twisted smile the whole time. Changmin knew he enjoyed it, the sick fuck, watching Changmin fail when he succeeded and got all the praise from Changmin’s own family. He would’ve dumped his friend to the sidewalk years ago if he wasn’t his best supplier.

Changmin lifts his head and squints his eyes, his headache worsening even with such dull light spilling in. He pulls out his phone, hand shaking, and wipes at the dirty and cracked screen, finding his drivers name.

“Kyuhyun,” he says, voice breaking and scratchy. “Come pick me up.”

Changmin shoves at a girls shoulder that he finds passed out in the next room and weasels the address from her just before she passes out again with a groan. He hangs up and looks for his shoes and belt—neither of which he finds. He does however find a bag of cocaine, and he slips it in his back pocket, waiting at the front door for Kyuhyun with bare feet and trousers falling off his waist. He refuses to look at his body these days. He’s gaunt with bones so sharp they stick out from his paper-like skin. He’s a mess, has been for years, and knows it full well. He doesn’t have anyone but his friend and his sister ever since the fire. He’d pushed away every single friend he’d ever had, and the closest person to him now outside of family is Kyuhyun. He’s not even sure the feelings are reciprocated, anyway.

Kyuhyun sighs when he sees him. “Get in, kid. You’ve got a talk at your school today, remember?”

Changmin runs a hand through his hair, wincing when he feels the grease stick to his fingers. “Right. Right.”

“The one your dad booked for you?” Kyuhyun says, eyebrows lifted but his expression not telling that he’s surprised, simply exasperated.

“Yeah. Do me a favour Kyu, get me some aspirin please? Maybe some jack for the road. I’m not getting through this speech sober. “

Kyuhyun gives him a thin smile and says, “If you wanted that, you should’ve called Kangin.”

Changmin sneaks off to the bathroom with a weak excuse and hits a line. He knows Kyuhyun knows by the way he looks at him like he’s lost.

Kyuhyun doesn’t have to look at him for him to already know that, though.

 

 

 


	2. Rule One: Never trust an addict

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yunho sees Changmin for the first time.

Changmin hops into the back seat of his car, a sleek black Lamborghini with custom silver rims. He’d installed a partition to stop Kyuhyun from nagging at him, and as soon as the older man gets in the car Changmin closes it. He waits until the car starts again and pulls the pack of cocaine from his pocket, pulling out his credit card and silver tube. He pulls down the tray from the back of Kyuhyun’s seat and starts cutting the cocaine into a small line, only taking one more bump since he’d had two just five minutes ago. He wets his fingers and rubs it through the coke, wiping the remnants on his gums, turning them numb.

He knows he’s going to need it for the speech. He hates standing in front of crowds while he’s not singing. When he’s singing, he’s Shim Changmin, but when he stands there on a stage without his guitar, his amour, all the feels like is the pathetic Changmin who sits in his room alone and gets high by himself. He feels like the Changmin who’s being examined by his parents after a hard night out, like a small ant on the picnic blanket. He feels like a nuisance and the anxiety overcomes him, burning him from the inside out. His throat constricts and his lungs start screaming for air, hands sweating and mind racing a mile a minute.

Well, this is all when he’s sober.

When he’s had coke, he feels confident as anything. It’s the main reason it’s his drug of choice, because it gets rid of the niggling feeling that he’s not needed, that he doesn’t deserve to be alive.

It’s why Changmin chooses to not be sober a minute longer than he ever has to—the reason why his family hate him so much. The thought hurts him deep in his chest and he takes another hit just for the hell of it. Kyuhyun lowers the partition when they’re halfway there and sighs. “Jesus, Changmin. You did more?”

Changmin is slumped against his seat, leg bouncing and white powder rimming the edge of his nose. Changmin sits up and wipes at his nose, shrugging. “Needed a boost.”

“Fucking hell,” his driver and glorified babysitter curses. “Do you honestly have a death wish? You _just_ overdosed two weeks ago. What am I going to tell your parents if it happens again on my watch? Do you ever even think about the people around you, or are you so absorbed in destroying yourself that you don’t realise your actions affect others? Your mother came to me, _crying,_ begging me to take care of you and help you, and God I’m trying kid, but you make it hard to. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were doing this just to spite them, but I know your parents, and they love you, and you’ve got money and everything you should want, but you still act like a spoilt brat. I don’t even know what to do with you sometimes I just—“

“Kyuhyun,” Changmin warns, his throat tight from the truth he’s spilling, “shut up and drive, okay. I don’t need this right now.”

By the time Kyuhyun has finished ranting at him, he’s parking the car and giving a long, heaving sigh. It’s the only sound Changmin really hears from the people around him these days.

“I wrote a speech for you. They want you to perform Lurk and Pour Some Sugar on Me. Censor your swear words, we’re at a school here, even if they are all adults we don’t want them to sue for misbehaviour. God knows we have enough.”

Changmin snorts and shoves on his chanel sunglasses, wiping his hair behind his ear. “Got it.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

Yunho rocks up for the speech five minutes late, which _totally_ wasn’t his fault, because Heechul’s cat, Heebum, made a break for the front door and leaped out into their apartment hall, and Heechul was all like, “I just did my hair, I can’t run”, and Yunho couldn’t just _leave_ the cat to fend for itself. Yunho had to chase the fucking cat for a whole fifteen minutes before he was able to drag it back inside. He gained some nice scratches all over his arms for the effort, too, and all Heechul did was grunt his thanks over his fashion magazine. Yunho loves Heechul, he really does, but he doesn’t think he’s ever quite wanted to strangle someone so much before.

His professor gives him a dirty look, scratching the tip of his obnoxiously large nose and tells him to find his seat quickly. Yunho likes to imagine his professor looks like the love child of Severus Snape and Dolores Umbridge with an overly enthusiastic personality tacked on. He’s not a bad guy like what his imagined heritage would implyjust, not gifted in the looks department. In fact, Yunho quite likes the guy.

It turns out Yunho doesn’t have to worry, because the guest speaker is obviously late and the principal keeps checking his watch and muttering under his breath in what he thinks is a low tone, but can be heard through the speakers loud and clear. _Where the hell_ is _he?_

He keeps stalling for time until a teacher comes up to his side and whispers something in his ear, and the principal sags in relief, turning to the crowd with an beam so bright his teeth twinkle in the light.

“Thank you for your patience. Now, this man was a student here five years ago, and since then he’s been flown from country to country, and sold so many albums he’s come on top of the charts every time he releases a song. Please welcome our pride and joy of S.M academy, Shim Changmin!”

There’s a beat where all goes silent, then a girl stands up and starts to scream, and everyone follows suit. Yunho gets dragged up by the pull of people and soon he’s on his feet, panicking slightly from the sudden change in atmosphere. He hears one girl sobbing to his left and the dude on his right is yelling so loud its almost popping his eardrums.

Shim Changmin stumbles on stage looking worse for wear, his walk unsteady. When he gets to the podium, he holds onto the edges to prop himself up and clears his throat. “Hello,” is all he says, but the crowd goes wild, the volume increasing impossibly.

Yunho wishes Leeteuk and Siwon were next to him so they could all stare at the stage with disapproval and tut their tongues.Siwon was born rich as hell and brought up so religious that everyone who strayed from the path of God he thought needed retribution. Yunho thought it was rich that Heechul was friends with Siwon but still had the nerve to call _him_ self righteous. But Yunho loves the man, he does, because while he can’t stop preaching for five minutes, he’s a good guy at heart. And Leeteuk? Well he just likes to bitch. He was brought up in a rough area so he’s seen it all before and wasn’t exactly judging Shim Changmin, just being entertained by having someone to gossip about.

He motions for everyone to sit down but no one does, and eventually he just shrugs and pulls a piece of paper from the back of his pants. He skims the paper then sighs, drawling the words on the paper that he evidently didn’t write himself, seeing as he stumbles over some lines. Yunho also thinks it might have something to do with the copious amounts of drugs he’d _already_ taken that morning.

It makes Yunho burn knowing that someone this fucked up could be so popular. Couldn’t these people around him see that he was damaged and broken, and didn’t need their worship, but the love of his family and help from the people around him? He was obviously not okay, yet everyone leeched off of that, shoving phones into each other’s faces at lunch and gossiping about the latest things Shim Changmin had done. They didn’t care about him, not really, they only cared about the entertainment he provided.

Yunho’s stomach turns to rot. He remembers his sister and wonders how in the world anyone could think that kind of lifestyle would be _glamourous._

Eventually, Shim Changmin finishes his speech and the principal comes back. “Now, let’s have a round of applause for Shim Changmin!” The clapping lasts well over two minutes despite the principal trying to make everyone be quiet. “Now, out of the goodness of his heart, Mr. Shim has offered to play a few songs for us to hear!”

The crowd goes wild as the stage dims. A spotlight shines on Changmin, and if possible be looks even more sallow than before. He seems to be shrinking right under the lights, the stage draining him with every step he makes on it. He has a pure black guitar slung over his shoulder now and his hair is pushed back messily.

The beat is surprisingly sombre for Changmin’s usual songs, but still just as haunting as ever.

  
_I want to be honest_  
_I want to be bad_  
_I want to destroy you_  
_I want to move fast_

 

Yunho presses his lips together and refuses to sing with the crowd around him. He will admit one thing about Shim Changmin: he is talented. He has a strange aura about him that’s hard to give words to, but it draws people in. He’s almost ethereal in his beauty, and his voice is high and haunting. He moves around the stage with an easiness that says he’s done the same thing thousands of time, but knowing that, he still pours his heart into the song. His fingers pluck easily at the strings, and Yunho has to be a bit impressed that he still has control of his finer motor skills when he’s so high.

  
_I want to be ignorant_  
_I want to know it all_  
_I want to die someday_  
_I want to live long_

The words make Yunho ache and he looks to his feet, remembering the way his sister used to cry when she said she didn’t want to die, and then the next day injected the poison into her veins.

_I'm thinking we should ride_  
_To a place that we don't know_  
_To a place where no one's seen us before_  
_I'm thinking, you and I_  
_Better just go with the flow_  
_Last thing that we should do is go slow_  
  
_Hey!_  
_This is the beat that makes your mother cry..._

 

The last straw ends with the word mother, touching a nerve still too raw, and Yunho slips his way through the crowd, unnoticed by the teachers who’re so distracted trying to keep everyone alive they don’t see him walk straight out the door.


End file.
